Seed collection is great because it gives you a legitimate reason to drive/hike around, explore new places, and look at plants, and you get paid to do it! Not finding much around the volcanic craters near Mono Lake? Why don’t we head up that stunning, glacially-carved, Eastern Sierra canyon and see what’s growing up there? There’s nothing much to collect in these foothills. Why don’t we head down to the huge salt flat in Smith Creek Valley, NV?

On a salt flat in Smith Creek Valley, NV

The huge variety of seed sizes and forms is really interesting, and training myself to look for seed has really added a new depth to my knowledge of and interest in botany. Mimulus guttatus seeds are so small and numerous that they appear as a fine, black powder. Epilobium ciliatum seeds are tiny, attached to tufts, and carried off by the wind. Needle-and-thread grass seeds are corkscrew-shaped and literally screw themselves into the ground. As always, plants are incredible.

However, I have definitely seen some noteworthy, non-botanical things as we have traveled around the NV deserts. The coolest thing I have seen recently is glow-in-the-dark scorpions! Apparently, all scorpions fluoresce under black lights, and we saw many of them on a night walk at Sand Mountain.

I am a scorpion.

Easily the creepiest and darkly weirdest thing I have seen so far was in one of the salt flats in Smith Creek Valley. Maybe a mile or so in, there is a large, wooden post with two dead animals hanging from it. At the top was a mummified cow (with what looks like a bird’s nest in its pelvis). Near the bottom was a second skeleton, suspended by wires which creaked when the wind blew. There were no signs nor any indication whatsoever of why everything was there.

Why.

Welcome to the desert!

Not much has been going on lately at the Carson City BLM office for us besides seed collecting and even that has been slow.  Right now it seems like we are in a period when plants have either just dropped their seed or are still in flower.  But when we stumble across the rare wet area in the desert we have been finding that the Juncus and Carex species are ready to go.  These end up being easy collections because there are so many seeds per plant.  It sounds like we will be starting fire rehab soon which entails going out and surveying the damage of the fires that have been going on around us.  Then we write up a fire rehab plan and suggest a course of action.  There have probably been 5 or 6 fires in the past couple weeks so we will definitely be busy.

William Blake wrote,  “To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”  I think seeds are infinity in the palm of our hands. This poem glorifies my seed collecting endeavors of the summer! And now the days are getting colder and a little darker here in the far North, and snow has begun to dust the tops of the peaks, known locally to botanists as Termination Dust. Uh oh for summer and seeds!

First snow on the Talkeetna Range

Though my time with the Chicago Botanic Garden is winding down, I will be staying here and continue to work for the BLM office and University of Alaska Anchorage’s Natural Heritage Program through November! I’m happy to have the opportunity to continue being part of this project, to see the seed season and all data through. What a grand experience!

This has been one of the fullest summers I’ve ever had. The diversity of my experience has been incredible, far exceeding any expectations I had of my internship. I’ve flown over the stunning Brooks Range of Alaska, stood at the feet of glaciers, watched grizzlies grazing on meadow sedges and grasses, and recently collected seeds for the future environmental restoration of the largest working Platinum placer mine in North America. That was quite a seed rescue mission!

Our work team and a mining dredge from the '30s

Seeds in a Lupinus nootkatensis pod

Grazing female Grizzly! mmmmm

Collecting Lupine pods near the Canada/Alaska border

And I’ve met people working on an incredible variety of projects in offices/field stations all over the state; I am continuously inspired by the work BLM and other agencies are doing up here.  Due to its immensity and landscape diversity, Alaska is an incredible place to monitor, conserve, study, and manage. I am euphorically, gloriously lucky to be here working!

Additionally, I’ve learned a language this summer, with beautiful words like Chamerion angustifolium, Leymus mollis, Androsace septentrionalis, Gentianella propinqua, Artemisia dranunculus, Calamagrostis purpurascens, Potentilla bimundorum, and Angelica lucida. And then there are names like Cnidium cnidifolim var. cnidifolium!

Parnassia palustris

Picking Dogwood berries... some how white berries aren't appetizing

Seed pod of Fireweed, Chamerion angustifolium

All I can say now, at the end of my CLM internship, is THANK YOU for such a spectacular experience.

—-Emily Capelin,  budding botanist

My CLM internship in Lewistown, Montana has been a formative, fun and deeply educational experience. Having lived my whole life in the urban areas of the East Coast, coming out West was like traveling to another world; a contrast which provided me with as many learning opportunities as my internship with two BLM Wildlife Biologists. During the last five months I have been able to come to many conclusions about myself and what I want in my future, as well as learn about the inner workings of a federal agency and how the “other half” of Americans live. It was some good country fun.
To begin, within my 872 hours of work I was able to gain many unique skills and get a clear impression of what it was like to work for the BLM, both as a Wildlife Biologist and many other positions. I am now familiar with the mission and goals of the agency- not only sustainable extraction of mineral, wood and range resources, but also a new push towards maintaining biological diversity at an ecosystem level. As my mentor has pointed out several times, since no other agency controls such vast stretches of land, we have unique opportunity to create landscape-level impacts. There are many ways to fit into this picture depending on what part you want to focus on- wildlife, water, plants, fire, range, forest, minerals, P.R. and others.
To the great benefit of my resume and future career growth I gained experience not only in wildlife surveying techniques and tracking, but a great deal of GIS use and mapping, PR and writing, project planning and off-road driving. With such a large Field Office as Lewistown I benefited from the diversity of experts available to work with, as well as the encouragement of my mentor for me to pursue whatever projects interested me. This array of experience (about twenty projects with a dozen different employees) allowed me to better explore what I enjoy doing and am good at- perhaps the best information you can be armed with when going out job-hunting. I am very grateful for the patience, guidance and kindness of both the Biologists I worked with, who often let me tag along with their field work and spent many hours teaching to me drive trucks, conduct surveys and think for myself.

The time spent outside of my work hours were equally valuable. I was able to travel to many iconic National Parks; places I had always dreamed of visiting, and became aware of my own frailty against such vast stretches of wilderness (i.e. the importance of good preparation!) I was able to do a lot of thinking, and decided upon importance of family to me (therefore the need to live closer to them in the future) and my readiness to attend graduate school for Natural Resource Management. I also got to experience what rural American values and life entail; the emphasis on independence, hard-work and self-reliance, an enjoyment of outdoor activities and the gathering of friends at Friday-night bars and Saturday-afternoon pig roasts. In the end I am not sure that I belong in this world, but I am thankful to all of the generous people who welcomed me with open arms into their community. I have enjoyed my summer tremendously.
During a talk with my mentor a few weeks ago he described my current methods as ‘stumbling through life’, as he had when he was a young man. But I disagree with his description- I would argue that my lack of distinct goals are adaptive- I am being flexible in a difficult job market, and perhaps a little ‘stumbling’ is the best way to get through. For the moment, I am open to whatever new opportunities may come my way, and eager for an experience which may teach me as much as the last 5 months have. Thank you so much, Chicago Botanic Garden, for giving me this opportunity. If you are reading this post as a prospective applicant, I would highly recommend the Program and Lewistown field office in particular.

This month has flown by! I cannot believe it’s almost September. Everyone in the field office has been extremely busy. This field season has been very short due to the heavy snowpack and wet spring, so we are trying to get as much work done as possible. It has also been very dry here in Missoula, MT and fire season is well on it’s way.

We have been splitting our days doing rangeland health and habitat typing. I knew nothing about either subject before this internship. I never thought I would know so much about cows or grazing. Through the process we have been able to do compliance and utilization reports on grazing allotments. We make sure that the leasee is in compliance with the grazing rights and is not over-grazing the area. We walk the allotments looking for cows, salt blocks, water troughs and making sure the fences are in good condition. I can say that I will never look at a pasture the same way…

Habitat typing has been a great learning experience as well. We have been working in an area that is very diverse and has some of the most beautiful meadows that I have ever seen. We are doing this to assess the timber stands in this area. We do this for several reasons; for watershed quality, timber stand improvement and sales, and to know how the area is being affected by the beatle kill. Through the habitat typing I have been able to learn many more native forest plants of Montana and use many new forestry tools.

I look forward to the next two and a half months here at the BLM and I am eager to learn as much as I can from my co-workers.

Lea Tuttle

August 8, 2011

Staring at the ground
Can reveal minute details
Often unnoticed

Greetings from Las Cruces, NM! It is still dry as ever down here, which means we only have two seed collections so far. These conditions have allowed us to switch gears and focus on rare plant surveying instead. We have spent a few days out in the boot-heel region searching for Peniocereus greggi, or Night-blooming Cereus. These cacti have very short lived flowers which are moth pollinated. We have been mapping the population in an area where the range department will be spraying herbicide to kill the creosote that dominates the landscape. Unfortunately, these plants are restricted to living in the small hummocks that creosote creates. By eliminating the habitat the population will be threatened, not to mention the direct threat of the herbicide itself. It raises the question of whether the benefits of killing the creosote, a widespread and dominant species here, will make much difference in the large scheme of things and if this benefit outweighs the negative effects on such a rare and beautiful cactus.
A more recent project we have been focusing on is mapping the population of another cactus, Escobaria duncanii, or Duncan’s pincushion, which is listed as state endangered and BLM sensitive. This population is found in the Mud Spring Mountains outside of Truth or Consequences, and is geographically isolated from its southern counterparts. It is a tiny cactus which can be very difficult to notice, as it blends easily into the gray rocks where it lives. However, we have been successful in finding the plants, along with other illusive cactus that grow with it such as Epithelantha micromeris or button cactus and various Escobaria species. We have been getting a lot of GPS experience with this project, and once the mapping is complete we will be writing a full report on our findings.

Eriogonum visheri

Work at the BLM continues to go well, with a few more seed collections in spite of the fact that the landscape is in transition to the hotter, drier season. Fire is starting to become a concern – which is hard to believe after this spring’s flooding! – but soon the fall plants will set seed so we can collect from those.
While in Miles City, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to experience several other botany -related activities, apart from my job. In late June my awesome mentor, Mel Schroeder, encouraged me and my co-intern to attend the MT Native Plant Society annual meeting in Ekalaka. That made for a very enjoyable and informative weekend; I got to do a rare plant survey of the native Visher’s buckwheat Eriogonum visheri, under the guidance of Scott Mincemoyer, botanist with the MT Natural Heritage program in Helena.
I have also spent two days helping out at the Special K Ranch, near Billings. Their mission is to provide a place for adults with developmental delays to learn life skills by working on the ranch raising livestock, growing bedding plants in the greenhouse, and caring for trees and shrubs in the nursery. I enjoyed transplanting some of the native plants, like sagebrush seedlings, that they are growing for revegetation.
Finally, I was in Glacier National Park for the July 4th weekend and stayed an extra day in order to participate in the Native Plant Nursery’s summer volunteer program. I helped transplant Oregon grape, rose, and other seedlings and helped weed some of the existing cells. It was fun meeting the employees and the other volunteers and sharing watermelon with them at lunchtime.
It’s hard to believe that my time in Miles City is halfway done; I am looking forward to all the things I will get to do and learn in the upcoming months!

Not this particular canyon, but another one of my favorite hikes and favorite views. The tiny white dot on the right is our vehicle

For this post I’m just going to outline one of my favorite days at work so far this summer. We have been past our seed collection quota for a while, so our recent initiative has been to continue periodic censuses for sensitive plant species. Today, we planned on surveying a 2-mile long canyon that seemed fairly straightforward.The plants we were looking for should be clear on the rim of the canyon, growing on the uppermost rock outcrops. So we hiked up the first ridge. Took about an hour. Onward, towards the target rock outcrops.They were slanted almost, and all along the inner slope of the canyon. Count plants, try not to slip on the “skree”, feel like a mountain goat, get rattled at by a rattlesnake, run away. We continued to climb and hike up and down the slope, counting thousands of individuals, for another few hours until we finally reached our end point – for the first side of the canyon. The sun had begun to emerge from the clouds, high in the sky, the humidity dropped, we slid skillfully to the bottom of the canyon. Found peace and wild mint in the strip of flat ground until climbing up the south slope. This has been one of the most challenging hikes I’ve ever been on. Once we get to the top, I think, easy stuff, beeline for the mouth of the canyon, toward the truck, toward the water. We follow the ridge for a while, see a rattlesnake skin, start to talk about watermelon and other high-water-content fruits while we become drier and drier. Walk another two miles through sagebrush and spiny shrubs. Rationing water, seems like we will never get to the beginning. We see the truck, still another mile down the ridge at the mouth, trying not to slide down the loose gravel and staying on deer and cattle pathways. We’re beat once we finally arrive back to our beloved vehicle. Five hours of intense and difficult hiking, multiple dangerous situations (I’m a little dramatic when it comes to snakes), a field notebook filled with data, scraped hands and knees. For some reason, even though at first I was fearing for my life, I began to appreciate this day more and more as I sat in the truck sore and thirsty and restful, traveling back to the office. I am in love with the fact that out here the abilities of navigation, driving to remote locations, endurance hiking in the desert in places where people haven’t been perhaps in several years on volcanic rocks that really do not facilitate hiking, these are the essential and expected activities of a botanist and that all of this work and struggle is necessary for the completion of a simple census.

Lisa,

Lakeview, OR BLM

In a prior entry (22 June 2011), I wrote the following:

“Our eyes can deceive us. We may see something and develop a desire for it, but until we actually experience it, we cannot know if our desire is for what it is what we’ve actually seen OR if our desire if for what we have perceived that something to be based on our knowledge and past experiences. [Examples] It can be the same with a career. I grew up thinking I had wanted to be a teacher. After a few years of teaching high school biology, I learned that I love to teach but that my childhood desire of being a teacher by profession was based on an incomplete, experience-lacking perception. Through my CLM internship with the BLM, not only have I been learning both the hits and misses of my pre-experience perception of working in land management, but I am also learning how to adjust to the misses and capitalize on the hits.”

I continued to share how my perception of desiring a land management career had a couple of flaws as well as several misalignments with the way I typically “do work” and most effectively function. However, reality has also proven that not every part of my pre-experience perception of and associated career aspiration in land management was off base for me.

The most obvious hit is threefold: I perform “hands-on” tasks [1] involving nature (namely plants) [2] outside [3].

Planting a propagated Ceanothus roderickii (federal status is endangered; California state status is rare)

First of all, I appreciate and enjoy working directly with the land and the resources of the land. Although there are some things I refuse to touch because they are too gross, I love to get my hands dirty when it comes to plants and soil in natural habitats. I keep in shape by exercising 3-5 times a week so, in general, the physical activity required for managing land is attractive to me, especially after an office job in which I sat in front of a computer at a desk every day (some days I was glad for it; other days i got quite antsy). The physical activity involved ranges from crawling through tick-infested, thick chaparral vegetation as a means of surveying for rare plants to pulling yellow star thistle along trails, from tromping through poison oak or blackberry shrubs to monitoring plant populations and recording data, from hiking a mile or more to or through a project location to collecting seeds and voucher specimens.

Counting stems of Galium californicum ssp. sierrae (El Dorado bedstraw) (federal status is endangered; California state status is rare)

Secondly, I absolutely love working with nature and in nature. Nature never ceases to amaze me; there is always  more to learn and to understand in regards to biology, ecology, botany, genetics, conservation…and the list goes on. As for me, I’m hooked on plants: the anatomical and physiological adaptations of many fascinate me; the beauty of some captivate me. And the interactive complexities within the plant communities and the ecosystems in which they exist either puzzle me or astound me. When I participate in monitoring, sampling, or inventorying or any kind, I believe that I may be contributing to something important, not just collecting data for the sake of science but for the practical implementation of effective and adaptive land management. And there’s just something humbling and wholesome about working directly with the ground and plants which serve as foundations for our physical lives and the natural world as a whole.

South Fork American River flows through the Pine Hill Preserve

Thirdly, having an “office” in the “great outdoors” is definitely a plus (at least on most days). The “office” aesthetics are undeniably unbeatable. (Considering that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, this may not ring true for all. But really, who can create anything as incredible as nature?) And the health benefits of all that make the outdoors a low-stress (if not stress-free!) environment–including the fresh air, adequate space for moving around, calming sounds (i.e. leaves rustling in the wind, flowing streams, etc.), and breath-taking scenes–are a priceless perk.

Perhaps the all-encompassing factor resulting in a match between my prior perception of land management and the reality of land management based on what I have been learning through first-hand observations and experiences has been the rich variety that accompanies this type of career. It’s certainly not that I am unable to handle routine (on the contrary, I have the ability to focus on one task of a long time and strong relate to the structure of routine as i function most efficiently and effectively with logical order and organization); I just prefer to engage in more than one basic type of activity if I have the opportunity to do so.

So what kind of variety am I talking about? Sounds like a great topic for another blog entry…

One of the eight rare plant species at the Pine Hill Preserve: Helianthemum suffrutescens

To conclude, my pre-experience desire to serve in a conservation and land management career included both misperceptions and on-target expectations. Additionally, this type of career is not a perfect match to my personality and functionality, but I do enjoy the work and have a passion for the purposes and goals. I participate in projects for which I have been well-educated and trained (not to mention will continue to learn about because of my interest in botany, ecology, and conservation) and contribute to causes which matter to me while engaging myself physically, mentally, and socially. As long as I can manage around the “misses” (how this career clashes with my personality and functionality) and focus with a positive attitude on the “hits” (the reasons and ways this career does work for me), I’ll be doing just fine (if not great!) and believe I will achieve success in this career field.

“Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars… and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy.”-Osho

The last month has been one of the most busy and rewarding times of my life. I’ve seen and done so many things and experienced opportunities many will never get to. The other seasonals and I have continued to work on our vegetation studies to determine suitable breeding habitat for the Greater Sage Grouse. We should finish our plots this week and I couldn’t be happier (mostly for the sense of accomplishment, but also because we have done so many that I am beginning to recite the scientific names of all the plants in my sleep.)

Recently, I have also been able to work on several projects in coordination with other agencies. Three weeks ago I went out with the Forest Service to conduct a trout population study in local streams using electroshocking.  Not only did I learn the names and characteristics of both native and non-native species, I also learned that trout are way more slippery that the fish I’m used to back in Missouri.. and… I’m not the most graceful in waders. Two weeks ago I traveled to the Virgin River to work with the Department of Natural Resources on a seining project to help eradicate Red Shiners which have managed to work their way back up the river into Utah during this last spring.  This was one of the most rewarding experiences and even though I fell into the river on several occasions and returned to my apartment smelling like 12 different sorts of stink, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

Like many other interns, I have reached the halfway point in my internship and while it is kind of sad to come to the  realization that it will all come to an end soon, I anxiously await all the new experiences the next two months have in store for me. Everything is simply happy… and so am I 🙂